STROKE OF GENIUS
If you’re popping into London for a spot of sightseeing and shopping then chances are you’ll be tempted to see the much-hyped Claude Monet exhibition running at The National Gallery.
For the first time in over two decades in the UK a huge range of the artist’s work has been assembled, and it focuses on the buildings he painted in Normandy, Rouen, Paris, London and Venice.
Monet was the father of French Impressionist painting and one of the genres most prolific artists, famous for his extraordinary ability to catch changing light and seasons, although he’s most famous for his paintings of water lilies And with great timing, a house has come on the market with Monet links.
It’s in Normandy and is where his friend and French film star Sacha Guitry liked to escape
Keen fans of Jane Austen’s 1815 novel Emma will know the fictional village of Highbury in which its eponymous heroine’s catastrophic match-making takes place.
Highbury is said to be based on a mash-up of Cobham and Box Hill in Surrey, both of which Austen knew well. But controversy has been stirring recently within the Austen literary world. Writer Nicholas Ennos has suggested that not only did Jane Austen not write the novel, but that Highbury is a carbon copy of the Surrey commuter town Paris during the hot summer months, and where Monet visited to party in 1913, despite his then advancing years.
The brochure for this Anglo-Norman manor, which is between Rouen and Honfleur, makes for an unusual read. The main house has five bedrooms, a high-ceilinged lounge, sauna and a snooker room, which is standard for a historic upmarket property of its kind. But the estate also comes with a llama paddock, two staff cottages, a heated outdoor swimming pool, central courtyard, huge greenhouse, tennis court and nearly 50,000 acres of land. Which for some people might seem like a bargain at €1.995 million.
The estate is available through agency frenchentree.com on 01225 463752.
Local developer Bewley Homes has joined the historical fray. Its new The Farthings development in the town includes houses named after characters in Emma.
The smallest three-bedroom semis start at £520,000 and rise to £790,000 for a four-bedroom detached house. If unlike Emma you weren’t born with a silver spoon in your mouth, then many of the homes are available through the Help to Buy scheme. For more information, contact Bewley Homes on 07384 253335.